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Google CEO Larry Page Just Made His First Big Mistake

Even before In the Plex author Steve Levy’s cogent post on Thursday about this week’s uproar over Google‘s new social search moves, which nodded to Google CEO Larry Page‘s possible role in the affair, I was already beginning to think it had Page written all over it. If so–and how could he not have been deeply involved in such a huge change to Google’s core service?–we could be looking at the first evidence of a significant downside to the Google cofounder’s management style.

But what if Page is too bold for Google’s own good? We won’t know that, most likely, for at least a couple more years, depending on how Google navigates through treacherous competitive and regulatory waters. But with the latest kerfuffle, it’s time to ask if Page is not just bold but, in some cases, rash. In that Investor’s Business Daily article, it’s telling that Alan Eustace, Google’s senior vice president of search, said of Page, ”His view is that speed is everything.”

This week, that penchant for swiftness hit a speed bump when Google introduced the awkwardly named Search, plus Your World. Now, Google’s search results not only highlight Google+ postings for those signed into Google, but the search results page also has a box at upper right with suggestions on “People and Pages” to follow on Google+ related to the search terms. Although Google offers a prominent button at the top of the page to allow users to switch to non-personalized results, the socially infused results are the default.

Immediately, many people, even some such as search expert Danny Sullivan who generally believe Google’s a good steward of search, swooped in to cry foul. Some worried about privacy (though no one sees anything they couldn’t see before), but most critics believed it was unfair of Google not to include Facebook and Twitter in that box of Google+ suggestions. Others thought the appearance of Google+ links in the search results, sometimes pushing Twitter and other links down, went too far.

A lot of people, including me, thought the criticism of Google’s attempt to promote its social network was overblown (Google helpfully listed many of these positive comments in a post today), especially given that Facebook is close to as dominant in social as Google is in search. It seems even more doubtful that this will inevitably lead in a Microsoft-level antitrust case, as some folks suggest, especially because it’s so easy to find examples in nearly every search of links to Twitter (if not to Facebook, which more tightly protects its corner of the Web).

Nonetheless, the furor almost by definition proves that Google handled this clumsily, probably by moving too quickly and forcefully. And that’s the mistake that makes me think of Larry Page. By many accounts, he has reenergized Google, so I don’t mean this as a blanket criticism. But his social sense (ironically) has never seemed finely tuned, at least when it comes to anticipating public reaction to Google’s actions. (To be fair, that’s not just a Larry problem historically; Google has often misgauged likely responses to its actions.) But in this case in particular, he and Google should have known that this radically new and Google+-slanted search would set off especially loud alarms, and no doubt some people inside Google did. But the company went ahead anyway.

The thing is, Google could have handled all this better. It could have labeled that Google+ box on the right as a promo; who could object to a clearly labeled house ad? It could have made the new social search results opt-in, rather than making them the default, while still promoting the social search enough to get a lot of people to try it. After all, it has previously hawked Google+ on its famously spartan home page, to little criticism. It could have done the standup thing and included publicly available Facebook and Twitter profiles in the righthand box.

But I have a feeling–sheer speculation, I warn you–that Page wanted to make a bold statement, and damn the consequences.

And who knows? Maybe it will work out great. Maybe antitrust and privacy concerns go nowhere. Maybe Twitter or Facebook gets elbowed into doing a deal with Google that would make those social results far more useful and less controversial. Maybe. In basketball, they say, if you don’t get any fouls, you aren’t trying hard enough. But I’m not sure it always works that way in business.

I don’t think Google’s mistake is as big as many people make out. It needed to incorporate social signals into search. But in the way Search, plus Your World was implemented, a mistake it certainly was. And it’s one that Google will be dealing with for a long time to come.

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Probably the biggest criticism of Google+ is that Google failed to capitalize on the initial excitement surrounding the service. They didn’t open up public registrations until long after the furor had died down, and now their key feature (circles) has been copied by Facebook. Perhaps by “moving too quickly and forcefully” they are trying to make up for being grossly under-aggressive with the Google+ launch.

I don’t believe anything Larry Page has done should be considered rash. If anything, I think Page considered all of the potential consequences and acted in a very strategic manner. First of all, as you may know, it was not his decision to exclude Twitter and Facebook from Plus Your World. The opportunity to be included in the search engine was actually extended to both Facebook and Twitter, as access to these social networking sites would greatly improve the concept of google’s new search engine. Of course, Facebook and Twitter declined the offer due to the fact that the search engine’s ability to search their data would basically eclipse one of the primary purposes of the social networking sites – the ability of the user to search for certain people and their information. However, unless Facebook and Twitter comply, there will be no antitrust case. So it will be interesting to watch how this unfolds. Secondly, if Plus Your World was Page’s idea, making it the default search engine was the correct move on a competitive level. Personally, I find it a tad bit inconvenient and would rather have the ability to opt into the new engine. However, the default setting will draw in exponentially more users than if it was simply a choice. Essentially, very few people will choose to opt out of the new search engine compared to the vast amount of users who would fail to opt into it. If the new search engine is a competition tactic of Google to keep up with the more-personal networks of Facebook and Twitter, than making it a default setting is precisely what they need to do to draw in more users. This is all speculation on my part, of course, but it will be interesting to see how all of this really plays out. But at this point, I do agree that Page’s moves have been unusually bold, but also have the potential to turn out very strategic if he follows up correctly. I think he’s made enough bold moves in this situation and should try to get out of the spotlight for a while as all of this unfolds. Good article.

I dont keep up with the temperament of Google’s executive staff as much as maybe I should. But I just don’t have the time and besides, you do a better job of it anyway.

BUT, I do agree that they are staring to change their philosophy and their core values. What made them so popular was their focus on search and user experience. For a LONG time they had the world pretty much convinced that everything they did they did for you.n

NOW no matter what they say to the press, it is obvious their focus has become their already overblown ego. They seem to be freaking out that they may not be the smartest fish in the tank.

Some kid comes out of nowhere, (certainly not Stanford), and build a little app to ogle chicks with and faster than Gogle’s own rise to glory, the kid kicks their ass in almost every metric. Growth, market valuation, and sheer numbers.

Chrome just cant seem to grab the lions share of the browser market leaving Microsoft in the lead. SO, they start using marketing tactics they’ve been banning lesser humans for for years now >can you say spamming links<

the "new" google, at least to my eyes, is blowing out all the stops to force people to forsake facebook and again prove google is smarter of the two. This does NOT look like any kind of service to the end user. Im sure they HOPE that happens, but the objective is to bring f/b down to #2

and THAT is what's wrong with the "new" google search. They have lost sight of who they serve

Back in September Forbes blogs headlined that “Google Plus was a Big Minus for Investors”. We’re seeing the ramifications of this now. Google plus is unlikely to ever be profitable, and if it damages historical business revenues along the way it could be more of a negative than initially imagined! Here’s the link to that early take http://bit.ly/nR6bVb

A big mistake for sure, most of all due to something not even mentioned in this article: the ‘Search Plus Your World’ results are terrible. They’re just not relevant. Matt Cutts posted about how the new results helped him find the game “Werewolf” … by showing him photos of him and his friends playing the game (is that really what you want Google to show you for such a search? the exact same thing as a Facebook search?).

I don’t think this is Larry’s first big mistake either. Look at Aaron Wall’s recent SEO Book breakdown of paid products invading organic on the search engine results page.. (which has recently succeeded at pissing off just about every SEO-conscious website owner that I know), despite the fact that Stuart Small (Google employee) has stated directly that 80% of users gravitate towards the organic listings. By their very own terms, that’s not creating a better experience for users, it’s an attempt to create a better experience for shareholders’ wallets.

If this is the direction Google’s going to continue to head, I think it’s time to finally sell that high-performing Google stock to favor Bing’s (surprisingly) less-greedy tactics, Yahoo! with their interesting new CEO, or even Yandex (which I believe shows incredible promise). It’s not speed, it’s greed, and given too many of the moves like those above there could be enough backlash to really cause long-term damage.

Whats kind of funny about this article is that it characterizes Page’s movement into social search as not being very well thought out. But Google started with Social search back in 2009. What really hasn’t been given much thought is this article.

A study released by Adobe last week indicates that there is no correlation between Android OS and Google Search mobile share in Asia-Pacific. Further, the study goes on to discuss the impending disruptive forces in the fastest growing cell phone region. Perhaps one reason why Google bought Motorola Mobility is the fact that they cannot set the default search engine unless they are the hardware manufacturer. Apple, in China, for example has already announced plans to replace Google with Baidu as the default search engine. Read the full report here: http://adobe.ly/R5nOQa